During tunneling as well as mining, the very process of driving tunnels, galleries, shafts or the like is a time consuming, energy consuming and costly element. For completing all these spaces besides the driving, securing roof, floor, walls and possible surface treatment has to be added. During driving of tunnels and galleries, it is previously known to use rigs having cutter wheels, which during working are brought to sweep the rock surface to be worked with the aid of a swingable and pivotable boom and drive arrangement arranged on a carrier vehicle. A rotatable cutter wheel with bar-like working tools is then arranged to carry out rock working.
For driving vertical mining shafts, it is previously known to use reamer bits which are rotated around an axis coinciding with the shaft direction and being pressed against the rock while using a guiding pilot tool.
As a representative of the first category of the background art could be mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,721,340. Other representatives of the background art are U.S. Pat. No. 4,629,010 and WO 93/07359 and GB 801 615.
All these representatives of the background art are suffering from the above mentioned drawbacks, namely, time, energy and costs, demanding operation.